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Adventures in Home Ownership

Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Beautiful Briny Sea

For our vacation this summer, we took a week long sailing class at Marina del Rey. We took the class through a company called "Blue Pacific Boating." They have about 10 boats in their fleet, and we decided that, not only were we going to learn how to sail, we were also going to stay on the boat.

So here's the boat we stayed on at night and sailed by day. It's a 35 foot Jeanneau in really "shipshape" condition, called Boo! Pacific. We worked really hard every day, helping us to locate muscles we didn't know we had. We steered, we worked the sheets, we tacked (turned the boat through the wind), and we mastered (sort of) the elusive jibe (turning downwind, which, if you're not careful, can kill you!!!!). (Not us, but seriously, it's kind of dangerous.) AND we are now ready for a Man Overboard situation (or, alternatively, the "Lady in the Water" situation). We rescued a disgruntled seat cushion so many times, that our class took to hiding the seat cushion so our instructor couldn't find it in the morning. We will be much happier to perform an actual Man Overboard maneuver when the man who is overboard can actually swim towards the boat.

After each awesome day on the water, we'd go out for a delicious dinner. We had a FREE meal at California Pizza Kitchen, El Torito's, Tony P's Dockside Grill, and the Cheesecake Factory on the last evening with some of our fellow students. Tony P's was kind of our favorite because of its super-duper old school vibe. Every entree came with the option of a baked potato, and Drew even got to order fried clam strips. It doesn't get much more old school than that. But our night out at the Cheesecake Factory was the best, because of the awesome time we had with two of our fellow students. Who knew you'd find two people who get every Pulp Fiction reference and laughed at jokes about "Hezbollah fist bumps?" We were awfully lucky!This is a picture of the beach in the Marina. We didn't swim in it, because, I don't know, it's right next to a Marina, but it was a nice place for a sunset walk.

On our last day, we took the tests for our American Sailing Association 101 and 103 certifications, that would make us eligible to charter boats from this company and other companies around the world. We had a different instructor for our last day, and he taught Drew how to single-hand the boat, while the rest of us tried hard to stay out of his way. Pictured here is Drew, the single-handed sailor, and the two folks we had so much fun with over the week.

And, lastly, we leave you with a picture of our tried and true boat shoes. They are the best shoes I have ever owned. And now I have the most excellent tan lines on my feet -- they rock.